A Cabinet Minister: To Be or Not To Be?

In December 2025, after the October elections to the Czech Chamber of Deputies, President Petr Pavel appointed a new government led by Prime Minister Andrej Babiš. The cabinet rests on a coalition of ANO, Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD), and Motoristé sobě.

From the outset, coalition talks were dominated by one controversial nomination: Motoristé sobě pushed for their MP Filip Turek to enter the cabinet – at various points floated for the Foreign Ministry and later the Environment Ministry.

The controversy did not come out of thin air. Czech media reported on an archive of Turek’s past social-media posts and comments containing racist, sexist and homophobic statements, including references to Hitler and Mussolini; police opened inquiries into suspected hate speech and related offences. Turek has denied wrongdoing and described the reporting as a campaign to discredit him, but the reputational and political fallout was immediate.

The President’s refusal—and the constitutional fault line

President Pavel made public that he would not appoint Turek as a minister. When the government was appointed in mid-December, Babiš therefore did not submit Turek’s name; instead, Motoristé leader Petr Macinka was tasked, at least temporarily, with running both Foreign Affairs and Environment.

After the New Year, Babiš formally proposed Turek for a ministerial post; Pavel refused and sent the Prime Minister a written explanation, questioning (among other things) Turek’s loyalty to constitutional values and his long-term pattern of statements undermining equality and democratic principles.

Here, the story goes beyond the public drama and raises a constitutional issue with practical consequences for the balance between key institutions.

Article 68(2) of the Czech Constitution provides that the President appoints ministers “on the Prime Minister’s proposal.” In a parliamentary system where the government is accountable to the Chamber of Deputies this is widely read as limiting the President’s discretion to exceptional, narrowly defined circumstances.

This is not the first time the boundary has been tested. Previous presidents, most notably Miloš Zeman, used delays or refusals in ministerial appointments to exert political leverage, triggering sharp criticism and repeated calls for a competence dispute before the Constitutional Court.

In today’s case, the theoretically available legal route would again be a competence dispute; yet Babiš has indicated he does not want to litigate with the President over a single nomination – leaving the constitutional question contested in the public sphere rather than settled judicially.

The “commissioner” workaround – and why it matters

The saga then took a further twist. On 12 January 2026, the government created the post of Government Commissioner for Climate Policy and the Green Deal and appointed Filip Turek into it – an appointment that does not require presidential involvement.

According to the approved statute and subsequent reporting, the role is to be performed through the Ministry of the Environment, potentially via an employment contract or a work agreement. That immediately raised concerns about whether the arrangement attempts to achieve – informally – what the constitutional appointment mechanism prevented formally: a de facto “ministerial” influence without ministerial responsibility.

It also reopened a separate legal problem: incompatibility with holding a parliamentary mandate. The Czech Conflict of Interest Act explicitly treats an MP’s employment or service relationship with the state at a ministry (in appointed roles or roles involving decision-making in state administration) as incompatible with the mandate; constitutional lawyers cited in the press have warned that an unlawful setup could even trigger loss of mandate once an MP assumes an incompatible function.

As of 23 February 2026, the standoff produced a political compromise: President Pavel appointed Motoristé MP Igor Červený as Minister of the Environment, ending the interim arrangement under which Foreign Minister Petr Macinka also ran the portfolio. Yet the core rule-of-law concern has not disappeared. Motoristé leaders presented Červený as a minister who will work closely with Turek (now the government’s commissioner for climate policy and the Green Deal within the ministry), and Turek himself quipped that the new minister “will do what he sees in my eyes” – wording that inevitably fuels questions about de facto influence without the constitutional appointment and political accountability of a minister.

The episode is a reminder that the rule of law depends on clear constitutional lines – and on the willingness to respect them even when shortcuts are tempting. Or, as Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk put it: “We already have democracy – now we still need some democrats.”

By JUDr. Marie Zámečníková, Ph.D.

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